Premier address slammed by opposition
OPPOSITION parties in the provincial legislature have slammed premier Phumulo Masualle’s State of the Province address (Sopa) as “lacking substance”.
DA leader in the legislature Bobby Stevenson said Masualle was “living in his own echo chamber” for repetitively saying the province was “in a sound state”.
The opposition parties were in unison in their disappointment about Masualle’s sentiments on education, particularly on the point that 3 000 teachers had resigned to cash out their retirement funds last year.
UDM’s Thando Mpulu was not pleased that Masualle “said nothing new and nothing detailed about the education transformation plan that was established last year and I am not surprised because there is nothing to say”.
The EFF believes that problems facing education and the low matric pass rate in the province are a result of corruption.
“The premier said nothing about how he plans to crack the whip on the corruption in that department which has resulted in the non-delivery of textbooks and he said nothing concrete on the strategy to improve matric pass rate because there is none,” said Peter.
“He is the premier and should not be telling us about problems but solutions to those problems.”
Peter and Mpulu shared the same sentiments, saying Masualle ducked talking about medico-legal claims against the provincial health department that run above R14-billion.
“The premier ran away from even a mere mention of this which is very disappointing because it is these claims that compromise service delivery if government is going to have such a huge debt,” Mpulu said.
But the DA gave Masualle’s administration thumbs up for the reduction in maternal deaths, child mortality and HIV prevalence rate saying this was the only positive thing said by the premier.
However, Stevenson was disappointed the premier did not mention anything about technology in his speech, saying Masualle had missed an opportunity to give hope to the youth of the province.
“It is also a known fact that for every 10% of the population with easy access to wifi and broadband – that will bring 1.3% economic growth,” Stevenson said.
“Masualle’s administration surely has no plan of rolling out wifi and broadband to the people.” — zingisam@dispatch.